Tess Davis

Tess Davis, a lawyer and archaeologist by training, is Executive Director of the Antiquities Coalition. Davis oversees the organization’s work to fight cultural racketeering worldwide, as well as its award-winning think tank in Washington. She has been a legal consultant for the U.S. and foreign governments and works with both the art world and law enforcement to keep looted artifacts off the market. She writes and speaks widely on these issues — having been published in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, Foreign Policy, and top scholarly journals — and featured in documentaries in America and Europe. She is admitted to the New York State Bar, teaches cultural heritage law at Johns Hopkins University, and is a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

In 2015, the Royal Government of Cambodia knighted Davis for her work to recover the country’s plundered treasures, awarding her the rank of Commander in the Royal Order of the Sahametrei.